Tim Blair

Where's the UN?

Then they could have lived in "refugee camps" for 54 years like the Palis.

Now Aus knows hou we feel in the US. We give all we can but its never "Good Job" but racist this and that. Bless the ones who are legal and damn the ones who arn't.

Albrechtsen debunked.

Hardly debunked Adam. More like vindicated. Scratching around with a few numbers does not alter the fact that the preoper people got into Australia, ie those who followed lawful procedures.

Debunked my arse! So what if the Government is cost shifting. The fact is that due to our effective control of our borders, there are less illegal entrants applying for, and receiving, less visas. Hence, more overseas applications can be granted to persons who then become legal entrants to this country.

This meanse that Australia is helping those most in need. Not the ones with the money to travel through numerous safe havens to reach the place that offers them the best economic prospects.

Hence, more overseas applications can be granted to persons who then become legal entrants to this country.

This meanse that Australia is helping those most in need...

well no, it doesn't. if you paid close attention to what i'd written, you'd notice that the people who get in under the "Special Humanitarian Program" do not have to satisfy the refugee test ["well founded fear of persecution"], they merely have to show "substantial discrimination amounting to a gross violation of their human rights", which is a much lower standard. what they do have to show is that someone in oz is willing to foot the bill for their entry.

therefore australia is not "helping those most in need", it's helping those most able to pay. which is a different thing.

"therefore australia is not "helping those most in need", it's helping those most able to pay. "

If you support illegal boat-people, adam, you are supporting those that can afford to pay, illegally, to get here. Instead of the most deserving.

Your so dense sometimes.

Correction:

You're so dense sometimes adam.

Personally, after reading Adam and some others who frequent this blog, I'm beginning to think that perhaps it would be easier just to say that it's okay for people to ignore the law. Just so long as they are willing to let me ignore the ones I don't like. Now I begin to see why Mad Max was Ozzie.

If you support illegal boat-people, adam, you are supporting those that can afford to pay, illegally, to get here. Instead of the most deserving.

i don't believe i have to spell this shit out, again: people who get visas under the "Special Humanitarian Program" are not the "most deserving", so quit pretending that they are. they can get in because they, or someone they know in oz, can afford to pay. i spose you could call it ironic that this is rather similar to the boat-people-paying-to-queue-jump scenario that ruddock says he's trying to avoid.

Ruddock, along with his equivalents in other countries, are quite rightfully attempting to eradicate illegal people-smuggling.

They are succeeding in this and it makes no sense to compare people prevented from entering countries in this manner to those entering it via legal channels, of which there are a number, each with different criteria.

I support immigration and because of this I support strong, sensible entry policies with absolutely no compromises. Ruddock is delivering this.

Welcome to Australia. Here's the rules.

Lemme get this straight. Australia has some 20 million people (give or take) and took in 11.5K persons as refugees and/or on humanitarian grounds in 2002? Only 11.5k? That's it??? Hello. That's an, er... incredibly stingy ratio when compared on a "per 100K of citizens" basis versus the numbers of flotsam and jetsam taken in by other developed nations. What's the problem folks? Not enough chairs at the Kylie Minogue official fanclub HQ?

To Peta Piper:

So far Australia has managed to avoid the ethnic strife and race riots happening in most other countries that have been foolish enough to take millions of 'asylum seekers', or have taken 'multiculturalism' to absurd lengths..

Australia accepted many thousands of Vietnamese and Lebenese 'refugees' in the 1970s - we now have a thriving trade in narcotics and weapons that we never had before these groups arrived. Add gang warfare and gang rape of Australian teenage girls to that list, and it becomes plain why we are now very cautious about who comes to live this country.

Good point, Dee. There was never any crime in Australia before those horrid people arrived. No narcotics, no gangs, no nothing.

And what exactly do you mean by "refugees", you ignorant fuckbag?

heh, kick a compassionate multiculturalist's sacred cow and out comes the profanity.

I guess it IS a little hard for a retard to understand the diffference between 'some crime' and 'more crime', I mean, they're practically the same thing, right, fuckbag?

Vietnamese are fine. A little heroin trafficking, no prob. Ruddock, just keep the goddamned muslims out, that's all I ask.

"So far Australia has managed to avoid the ethnic strife and race riots happening in most other countries that have been foolish enough to take millions of 'asylum seekers', or have taken 'multiculturalism' to absurd lengths... "

Oh really dee? And what "most other countries" are you referring to? The only one I can think of with any out 'n' out ethnic strife and/or race rioting is Germany and quite frankly there's nothing to suggest that such occurrences there couldn't be the result of everyone else getting fed up with the icky, pushy, loud, aggressive, in-your-face Germans.

The USA, Canada, Sweden, Peru(!), Norway and even Finland all take in far greater numbers (both whole and on a ratio basis) than Australia and I don't see them coming apart at the seams. In fact Canada, which is only 1/3 larger in population than Australia manages to integrate over 125,000 of them per year without any significant sacrifice in the quality of life enjoyed by all.

Perhaps if you were to volunteer with one of the many philanthropic or church groups in your country that helps these people integrate, rather than chairing the weekly Bigots-R-Us meetings in your neighbourhood, you actually might see that 99.99999% of these asylum seekers are entirely legitimate i ntheir motives, and are normal, decent (fully!)human beings who are totally non-political, wanting only to escape bad, bad stuff like religious oppression. By and large they are simply looking to give their kids a fighting chance to grow up in a war-free, conscription-free, terror-free country.

Oh I'm terribly sorry dee. I didn't mean to interrupt you while you were adjusting the straps on your jack boots. Love that new shirt by the way - sharp! Brown really IS the new black, doncha think?

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of recent boat people have come from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. If boat people were by and large people who moved for economic reasons, then they would have come from a far wider variety of countries.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/sectionindex2/0,5746,ausletters1%255E%255ETEXT,00.html

It's a lottery

JANET Albrechtsen's defence of refugee policy (Opinion, 3/9) is striking for what it omits. She is correct the Government's offshore humanitarian resettlement program helps some deserving individuals, but unfortunately it is tainted by several factors.

Only a minority of places in the program are for refugees under the 1951 convention. A majority of places go to the "Special Humanitarian Program", for which one need not be a refugee, but for which an applicant requires a sponsor in Australia. This automatically excludes most refugees from any hope of getting a Special Humanitarian Program place.

Successful Special Humanitarian Program applicants are responsible for paying their own air fares to Australia. Thus, the program is hardly accessible to the desperately poor whom the Government purports to be protecting

Australia uses medical tests to screen out disabled applicants, or applicants with disabled dependents. Deteriorating eyesight has been cited to deny applicants a resettlement place, and even women rape victims who are HIV positive have been rejected. Yet disabled refugees are typically by far the neediest.

Little wonder the Refugee Council of Australia has concluded that the offshore humanitarian resettlement program does not offer a place in a queue, but a ticket in a lottery.

Dr William Maley AM
Reid, ACT

(just a little cut and paste from today's Australian. Maybe you could go interview someone like this Tim and be a real reporter for a change, instead of a paid fraud.)

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/sectionindex2/0,5746,ausletters1%255E%255ETEXT,00.html

Wow, less than 12,000 people? And Australia is how big?!! (I'm very jealous, as I live in the UK. I'm pretty sure my seaside town has seen more than 12,000 immigrants in the last two years!)